Drinking and Diving

[tadawson]

My thoughts are simple: It's just as, if not more moronically stupid than drinking and driving. Consider a window similar to a "no fly" time before diving after heavy drinking . . . Frankly, I don't want to have to haul your dead ass out of the water . . . .

- Tim

 

[1thumper]

By "scuba police", do you mean the people who choose to permit you to use their private facilities (boat, dive centre, equipment) to conduct your dives and who have the absolute legal right to deny those facilities to any diver they feel may pose an unreasonable risk to themselves, other divers, staff or the business operation?

Those operations have a right and responsibility to establish guidelines that they believe will promote safety, and to expect that their customers follow those guidelines. My question is intended to see if there are any objective, authoritative references that anyone knows of in the community by which such guidelines can be established. Like referring to DAN website for recommending 18 hours before flying, various training materials that can provide a recommended safe ascent rate, or maximum depth for an OW qualification.

Or do you mean the divers peer group, who may wish to decline diving with individuals they feel pose an unreasonable risk to themselves?

Any diver should call off a dive at any time they would be diving with individuals they feel pose an unreasonable risk to themselves. I certainly would. My question is intended to see if there are any authoritative reference that anyone knows of in the community by which such a decision can be made. And if the person who one had declined to dive with wanted to know why, it seems better to have an authoritative reference to explain why you thought it was unsafe....instead of just saying "no drinking before diving and I saw you drinking a beer 3 days ago (or 12 hours ago, or 3 hours ago)". What is a good objective reference to use?

Or do you mean the individuals who feel that diving with alcohol-induced performance impairment constitutes a form of willful negligence and wish to freely express those opinions on a discussion forum?

I would probably agree with those individuals. Hopefully we all can freely express our opinions here in a positive fashion.
To me someone who goes diving with a blood alcohol level exceeding what would be enough to convict someone of drunk driving or public intoxication is being willfully negligent. Where's the line? We certainly don't want people running around using breath-o-lizers. What is a good objective reference for a layman to use?

Or do you mean some ultra-secret legal organisation that exists in a covert capacity to monitor and enforce a system of equally ultra-secret laws pertaining to the conduct of scuba diving?

Let's pray that such never occurs!

Hopefully it can be seen that the intent of the OP question is to see if there is any authoritative, objective reference to help people deal with this issue. Simply saying "no drinking before diving" (a la PADI) is not very helpful because it doesn't address how long before diving... hours? days? weeks? or how much? We don't just recommended to a new OW diver "Don't go too deep", we also tell them how deep is probably too deep.

 

[davetowz]

The old Air Force rule of 12 hours Bottle to Throttle works....usually, however if you wake up (12 hours later) and want to tell someone that you still feel a lil... maybe it is abetter day to take a tour of the above sealevel sites.

 

[DevonDiver]

In that case; we're looking at two (?) direct impacts and one (?) indirect impact that alcohol consumption can have on a scuba diver underwater.

Firstly, that elevated amounts of alcohol in the bloodstream may have a physiological impact that renders them more, or less, susceptible to decompression illness. Gene_Hobbs' post seems to indicate that this won't be the case.

Secondly, that elevated amounts of alcohol in the bloodstream will have a physiological impact on the diver that inhibits their physical and mental capacity to a degree that their performance capacity is deteriorated to a level that constitutes 'unreasonable risk'. I don't believe that any agency or organisation has published a specific diving-related blood-alcohol limit. However, the study of performance at various blood-alcohol levels is well documented. Those studies have formed a basis for the imposition of laws regulating drinking and driving. Driving an automobile has a similar performance-risk relationship to scuba diving - so I'd propose that drinking/driving limits should be applied to scuba diving for that reason.

HOWEVER, I would be interested to know if the physiological impacts of alcohol have any known, or theorised, relationship with the manifestation of nitrogen narcosis. The issue of inert gas narcosis does differentiate scuba diving from other, non-diving, activities. This may well impact upon any blood-alcohol limits that can be tolerated when diving without causing unreasonable risk.

Thirdly, drinking alcohol produces a number of physiological side-effects besides inhibiting physical and mental performance. Several of those side-effects are also known pre-cursors to decompression illness. The primary one being dehydration.

 

[Phil_C]

I'd echo Boulderjohn - I was a police officer for thirty years and had a lot of experience of breathalising people 'the morning after the night before'.

Most people who had consumed more than a single drink the night before still had MEASUREABLE levels of alchohol in the breath or blood the next morning, and many of these were over the level deemed safe for driving. The only reason we have a so called safe level for driving is because the nanny state recognises you cannot have a zero level, it is unrealistic with peoples lifestyles. Most airlines have a zero tolerance for measureable alchohol in pilots because of the recognisation that any alchohol impairs your performance, and I think at least one of the Scandinavian countries has a zero tolerance level.

For me - if I am going diving I will not drink any alchohol the night before, my life and health is not worth the risk, afterwards is fine for me.

But hey, millions of people still smoke, and we know what that does to you, so you make you own choices in life.

 

[knowone]

And you didn't even have to go farther than the police station car park

 

[Searcaigh]

Alcohol Level here in UAE for driving is 0, anything over invalidates your insurance so in event of an accident if you have have consumed alcohol and some idiot T bones your car then most likely of you survive you will also go to jail.

As for diving, a beer post dive is about my limit these days but I know when I was younger it was occasionally a bit more than one.

 

[Phil_C]

knowone - "No comment m'lud"

 

[TSandM]

This Wikipedia article actually has some good ballpark information on the expected blood alcohol level after consumption of a certain number of drinks, based on body weight, and also on decay rates. It takes longer to metabolize all the alcohol one has consumed than most people think.

 

[FinnMom]

After 30 I noticed that a really powerful secret to feeling better and having more energy was to never drink very much.
After 45 I noticed the same thing about drinking less than ever.

I would strongly recommend you try drinking no or almost no alcohol when you dive. There's not only all the serious concerns, fact is you'll just feel better.
The few weekends I've been on where folks had more than a couple beers always ended up being the ones where we did amazing few dives. The mornings were too easily too early, the waves too easily too high, the 2nd or 3rd dive too easily too much for our energy levels.
Now I'm trying to get older & wiser. We can drink at home; when we've got a chance to get in the water that's something more special and really great: let's just do that.

Also noticed that when in a small boat/camper/hotel for days on end it's a lot easier to all get along if no one is ever intoxicated.